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Stay ahead in the game with the latest marketing news tailored for SME business owners in Croydon, South London, and Surrey. Croydon Web Design and Digital Marketing specialists offer expert insights to elevate your brand presence

Wooden dice with email symbol for digital marketing communications

6 Email marketing tips to grow your business

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How email marketing can grow your business

You may think that incorporating email distribution into your digital marketing plan as a bit old hat, but let us paint a picture on this cost effective marketing service for you. Think how you feel when you receive a letter at your home. You check your post every day and open letters addressed personally to you. You follow a similar process with your emails. Your phone is always at arm’s reach and when you get that notification you look to see what you’ve received – if anything to get rid of those red bubbles! But in doing so, you’ve clocked the brand – that’s helping with awareness. It’s then your choice as to whether you open and read, file or delete. But ultimately some impression on you will be made. But what makes an email campaign effective that can help to grow your business?

Newsletter sign up

First and foremost, you need a list of email addresses to distribute your content to. If you’ve already got your database sorted and it’s GDPR compliant then you’re all set.

But, if you do not have a list, one of the best ways is to make sure you have a newsletter pop up box on your website for visitors to sign-up to receive emails. But be very clear about what you’re capturing someone’s details for, as you need to be GDPR compliant (read about the ICO regulations).

You can also work with digital marketing agencies to help you with creating the pop-up box on your website or helping you to purchase a list.  Create a CRM system too this will help you engage effectively with customers knowing their needs and and how bet to contact them.

Get to the point

So, with your GDPR compliant list you’re set to send an email. But wait, what are you going to tell your potential customers? Your content needs to be fresh, engaging and most of all worthy of someone opening the email and reading it. Really think about the news you are sending and question – “is it relevant to my target audience?”

The subject line is crucial. It needs to entice, engage, have meaning and stand out. Phrases such as “3 days left to save on your personal tax accounting fees” – it provides a hook to open the email.

Also, steer clear of keywords that will be caught by spam filters such as ‘free’ or ‘buy’.

Set the tone

By now you should have set up your target persona (check out creating an online persona to help with this). Therefore you’ll know the keywords and phrases you should be using, the tone should be a reflection on your accountancy firm.

Call to action

So, you’ve sent an email, so what. Make sure that the recipient knows what to do next. Make it clear and obvious what the ‘Call to Action’ is so they benefit from your email. Include trackable links to give you a picture of what’s popular and where leads have come from, e.g. links to blog posts, web pages, social media platforms.

Unsubscribe

You must always have an unsubscribe option in your email as well as a link to your privacy policy. While it’s sad that people may unsubscribe, see this as a positive. If people are not interested, then by making it easy to unsubscribe, you’ve cleared someone from your list that wasn’t going to engage anymore than that.  Don’t alienate people by making it difficult, if they are not interested in what you have to say then that is their loss. Just focus on those who are interested. Remember, you need to be GDPR compliant, so transparency is important.

Images

Make sure your email template is easy to navigate but most of all you have enough pictures to make it interesting to look at.

Book a Practice Growth Session

To make a leading marketing campaign it makes sense to contact the experts; we are a email marketing agency in London. Get in touch to receive support in getting an email marketing campaign set up to help with your inbound marketing, then get in touch with us today.

We have expertise offering digital and email marketing for accountants and offer Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for firms keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Keyboard shopping cart for remarketing

Understanding how remarketing can grow your business

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Have you ever seen those ads that follow you around the internet? A few days ago you searched for something online and then an ad for it shows up on a completely different website a few days later. This is remarketing and a very useful tool it is too.

Sales very rarely result from a smooth journey from ‘A’ to ‘B’. It normally takes a few side roads to get to the end goal and remarketing helps you guide people along the journey.

We’ve talked before about ease of navigation on your own website and in a similar way remarketing is another way of helping to reconnect visitors back to your website. As people scroll through Google the remarketing ads appear in a strategic position on the page.

It’s helping to increase brand awareness and trust for your product and services.

Benefits of remarketing

Here’s some of the benefits of remarketing to help drive sales and awareness of your brand:

  • You can really target your audience. When someone has added items to a shopping cart on your website but then disappears without completing a transaction, you can create a remarketing list specifically focussing on these people.
  • Be found. Remarketing is another way of getting you found online. Ads can show when clients are searching for your business on Google which really reinforces your brand message.
  • Be creative. It’s easy to create ads via the Google Ad gallery layouts which helps you to create an eye-catching campaign.
  • Increase sales. Conversion rates are more likely to increase overtime. The more users see an ad, the more brand awareness and trust is built. Although you’ll find that the CTR (click through rate) declines over time, the people who do click are more likely to convert to a sale

While cost for a remarketing ad can be a lot lower than a standard Pay Per Click ad campaign, both can work in tandem with each other to really reinforce the message of who you are.

Running remarketing ads on Google and Facebook is a great combination.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you feel you need some support in getting your website optimised with a paid for digital marketing campaign, then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

PPC Agency

Where organic misses pay per click can hit

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Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns create adverts online so when your business is not being viewed in the natural results you can give it a little nudge with a paid campaign. While it can be somewhat complicated, as Google certified, we at Smart Cow can help small businesses navigate the terminology with a tailored campaign.

In this blog, we’ll run through AdWords management and the types of PPC campaigns you can implement.

Google AdWords

With a whopping 1 billion+ using Google search every month, it makes sense that your website is seen in search. While appearing on the first of a search engine results page in organic search is the goal, if your website is new you need to give it a bit of time before your keywords and phrases start to take effect. So, this is where a paid campaign can give your website a boost in search as a paid for ad will pop up towards the top of the first page of search.

Essentially AdWords Accounts are structured starting with a Campaign level, you can set up a number of Campaigns within this. Each Campaign then has AdGroups, so you can focus on really targeting your messaging. For example, you may want to focus on promoting CRM software so that would form one AdGroup within the Campaign. But then, in time, you may decide to push another product so therefore you can create another AdGroup. Each AdGroup can then have a number of Ads so you can have a range of messaging per AdGroup. You can then ‘throttle up’ or ‘down’ individual ads depending on how they are preforming. Then be specific with your keywords and the geographic area you’re targeting.

Social Media
Marketing

For the purpose of this blog we’re looking at paid for campaigns and a PPC campaign also applies to social media too. Although it’s worth noting that with all the social channels available at your fingertips, one size does not fit all. You need to carefully consider which channel is best for your business. If you’ve not already set up your channels, take a look at how we help our customers with their social media.

If you’re underway
with your social channels and are looking for a boost in followers or click
through to a special offer, then a PPC campaign can help. Our blogs on how to
boost posts for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter will give you an
idea of what you can do and how to do it from selecting a budget, attracting
more profile visits, increasing website traffic and choosing your
audience. 

Keep your
messages simple

Remember who your target audience is when you tailor your messaging. Most PPC campaigns have a limited number of words you can use, so be clear and concise, this will also improve your quality score (where Google ranks the relevancy and originality in your PPC ads) . Campaigns that are very specific to the service, product and price are much more successful than a generic advert.

PPC Expert Croydon

If you feel you need some support in setting up a PPC campaign and all things PPC Marketing then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Sources: Business Insider via Search Engine Journal

Word dictionary search SEO

Quality website content that improves business

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To help you make the most of your online presence, here we take a look at content and how it can improve your online visibility in search. This in turn will help your business grow as more and more potential clients find you and engage with you. Looking to ramp up your website design in London? Get in touch here for a Free Consultation.

Who are you targeting?

Before you embark on any fresh content for your website or if you’re updating your current website, make sure you have a target persona created. You need to understand your audience and their challenges, wants and needs before you can know how to write relevant content that will make them listen and engage with you. Take a look at our blog about setting up the identity of your target audience to help you create a persona for your business.

Content is and will always be king 

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it a thousand times, content is king. Relevant content for your target audience that is succinct, to the point and carries good call to actions will not only help with engagement and ease of navigation, it will also help you rise in the rankings in search. Why? With a well-tailored Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign you can help your business be seen by ensuring you are using the right keywords and phrases.

Read our blog on SEO to help you improve your content and impact on where you appear on a search engine results page (SERP). Remember that 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search* so it’s important to ensure you have great content that helps you move up the rankings and support your goal to appear on the first page of search.

Watch your tone

We would also advise that you draw up a list of how you would like your content to sound and come across to your audience. This means that you have consistency across your website as well as other marketing channels such as social media and email marketing. It also means that if you have a number of contributors they can write in a similar manner so you can maintain consistency of brand.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you feel you need some support in getting your website Search Engine Optimised then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Sources: *Search Engine Journal

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